Thursday April 18, 1996

On this day, Rebecca, my love and my life, said that she had realised that her real personality had for years been suffering under the weight of St Matthias and evangelicalism (which we knew) and my own personality (which I guess I knew…). She had to get away from me and from anyone she knew, anyone who would attempt to influence her or tell her what they thought was right or wrong.

So she got in the car, got a YHA card, and went to Melbourne. That was what she needed, and it was good. I coped mostly because a few hours after she left, Paul rang up to say he had his internet access, and I found that so did I. And because I was working morning shift. So for a week, I got up at 4:30, skated/drove/bussed to the airport, worked, came home, explored my computer, and slept. Interspersed with time I spent with various people, mostly Rozelle [now Plunge] types and the neighbours.

Now (29/4) she’s back, but only somewhat. She got back to Sydney on Saturday the 27th, and has decided to stay indefinately with Melinda and Brenton (and Geordie). I saw her today for the first time in 12 days. We talked, and it was ok. If sad. We see a counsellor on Wednesday, and we both want her to be able to live with me, for the rest of her life, without her personality becoming lost. We both want the real Rebecca, but we fear that if I try to have her, neither of us will. Rebecca wants to work on the relationship, but the sort of work she’s been doing for years is bad. She needs to work not on pleasing me and being the right person, but on being herself, strong enough to escape the black hole of my influence.

Many years ago, in the midst of our tumultuous relationship at uni (just before our last real breakup, I think), I wrote a poem.

Elysium

I soared upon her back,
we rode together the wings of her passion:
diving towards the river styx,
climbing towards Elysium.
And under my guidance we shunned the pits of hell,
and under my weight we missed the joys of heaven.
I provided a stability not her own:
her flight became less erratic,
our paths more predictable,
until my weight became a burden,
and she dropped to earth.

I fell to the ground,
sobbing dispassionately for the clouds,
As she rose, unfettered,
to the peak of heaven,
via the pit of hell.

And she wrote something in her diary book, quoting my poem:

… He has changed and so has Lynda. I also see them differently. Andrew has learnt pain through knowing my mind and the love which he has given me without the possibility of it’s greatest, and only, fulfilment – the rest of his life with me. The tragedy is that I also love him, need him, but who he is extinguishes what I am. He takes away the loneliness, but also my self, since I can only see the world through his mind when I am with him. He cries now and I comfort him, while crying at his pain and fearing the future when he will be gone. But he must go if I am to live, and I wish that he needn’t.

We’ve been married for three years, and it’s exactly the same.

It’s a year later now. We couldn’t both have the real Rebecca. The counsellor was ok, as much as they ever are, and the friends were good. She’s lived in half a dozen places, and still isn’t ‘on her feet’. We talk, we begin to be able to laugh, we see our future as friends. I think of her the way I think of a few other girls I know and love, but who are not avaliable – and who I don’t think I want to be with anyway.

I found a poem by William Blake

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy: But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise.